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Thursday, October 28, 2010

Some have asked that this blog attempt to explain what's going on to those who are "not in the know." I don't know how to break this to everyone, but I'm generally the last person to know much about anything. However, as you all know, lack of the knowledge has never stopped me. So, here is the take of someone who admits to being looped, sorry out of the loop, about the goings on. I have been here for 23 years and been in higher education for 31 years. I have watched shenanigans from McComas to Jacobs and dare to say this is the most spin I have ever experienced. That scares me. Allow me please to explain. When an organization spends as much time and effort (round tables, transformative force, etc.) as this one has and it results in as little as this represents so far, I keep waiting for what's really going on. When an organization blames a faculty union for wanting its rightful role in reorganization and refers to the faculty as standing in the way of progress I keep waiting for what's really going on. Anyone who believes that this modest reorganization is in any way transformative or sets new trends in higher education is nuttier than a fruitcake. So again, there must be more. The question is what constitutes more. There are several possibilities some of which have already been listed by readers of the blog. The first of those is divide and conquer. There is some plausibility to this argument because more layers of bureaucracy have been created between upper administration and the rest of us. Shared governance then becomes more difficult because you have a variety of voices rather than one council. It also makes threats more real because you are part of a much smaller entity. Along these same lines, there is supposed to be another committee that will analyze all of the departments and programs that were a part of the old college. The goal is to see who best fits with whom. Actually the goal will probably entail decisions on downsizing. Remember, you already have a smaller college so you have less power to prevent whatever they think should be done to you. Also please examine next year's projected budget problems and this piece of paranoia actually makes some sense.

This leads into the second issue--the budget. Remember the good old days when one could actually see the budget in the library? Now you have to know exactly what you want and then request that. Perhaps the Gods will then condescend to send you some of it. As a taxpaying citizen of the great state of Ohio (I also vote--early and often) I believe I should have access to how the money is being dispersed by our administration. The budget issue is a bit like reading the Bible back in the middle ages. If you could not read you had to trust those, the priests, who could about the content of what was in the Bible. That practice helped lead to the Reformation. Today, we are supposed to trust those who have access and therefore can read the budget as to what is in the budget. I have no idea where that will lead.

The third explanation we received is that the reorganization is going to make programs more visible and hence help our students. We as faculty need to understand what a wonderful thing this is and merely shut up and accept it. I guess the administration doesn't think much of programs in HHS because, following this logic, they are about to become less visible because they are being merged. What's good in one case must not work in the other. It has been my experience that what benefits students is access to good faculty and good facilities. The actual organization rarely affects them.

Downsizing, the budget, and shared governance are my initial three. There are undoubtedly other reasons behind the reorganization but this is enough paranoia for one entry.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

I would like to point out that rearranging deck chairs does not constitute transformational change. The Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil Rights Act all were and are transformational. This is not. Ohio State puts together a College of Arts and Sciences; we take one apart. Whoopie. But, as they say, that train seems to have left the station. Understand what will now happen. Anything good that transpires over the next millenium will be credited to the change; anything bad that happens will be charged to laggards unwilling to accept change. That's PR folks.

Perhaps someone can explain this. I heard the BOT passed a resolution that allows them to toss cash into an employee's tax free account without really having to call it a raise or tell many of us that they're doing this. Sounds like a great way for someone to claim that they too are taking the financial hit the rest of us will be asked to take while the BOT tosses them some extra cash. I'm just asking for a little guidance here. Afterall, I am a taxpayer and would like to know how my money is being spent. Along those same lines, it would sure be nice if the budget were back in the library. Again, as a taxpayer, why do I not have the right to see the entire budget for a state institution? All I ask is a little guidance.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

. . . President Lloyd Jacobs said the proposed plan will build synergy and creativity and is a student-centered plan for a student-centered university.

“If we do this, the synergy I believe is great,” he said. “The energy will make it worth it. The creativity will make it worth it. The ability to hear voices in the organization will make it worth it.”

Yesterday the Trustees of The University of Toledo pointed us in a new direction. They clearly stated their resolve and commitment to excellence and their willingness to take risk for its achievement. It is now for us to carry out their mandate.

I wish to reiterate that Institutional Structures are about human relationships and are one tool for the implementation of strategy. As we begin implementation we must recognize “Directions 2007” and “Directions 2010” as our clear guide(s) to the creation of our future.

There are literally thousands of decisions ahead of us. What are the first steps? Who will be appointed to leadership roles? How will they be chosen? What will be the milestones, the metrics, and the deadlines? When will former structures cease to exist? How will we attain unity of purpose? When will we know when we are finished?

I think we need a pause to reflect and think. I plan not to take any significant implementation steps for the next month. I would like to have some initial personnel actions and other steps ready for the December 6 meeting of the Board’s Academic and Student Affairs Committee. In the interval I invite your input and action. This should not be seen, however, as an opportunity to reopen the debate on whether or not the university should reorganize its academic structure.

Individuals, students, faculty, and staff; ad hoc groups, college counsels, The Senate, Deans, Chairpersons, Vice Presidents; please think about the best way to implement. Send your ideas. But, most of all perhaps, you can say “here’s a way to do this and I or we will get it done.” Let’s try for not only action items, but action itself. Everyone is empowered to “just do it.”

In so doing, keep in mind our institutional values; read the current draft of “Directions 2010” and the HLC Self Study. Remember we must be fiscally responsible. Remember our commitment to diversity. But feel free, indeed I urge you to move ahead. Attached please find a listing of the Colleges and Schools which now exist by virtue of the Board’s Action yesterday.

Finally, I urge the College Councils and the Faculty Senate to become implementors. Where Administrative action is needed please call or visit. I promise I will keep an open mind for the month’s moratorium. Thanks. lj

Hard Eight: Auto-Ethnographic Essays on Academic Culture Featuring the End of the Arts & Sciences College, University of Toledo, 2010

Daily Koan

Should the newly discovered black hole be named in honor of UT BOT?

Swamp Bubble

Do you agree or disagree that University of Toledo suffers from administrative bloat?

How do you feel about the proposed UT Degree Guarantee program? (Reposted to allow more people to vote.)

How do you feel about the proposed UT Guarantee program?

How would you grade the overall performance of the Jacobs' administration on running the University of Toledo?

COMMENT OF THE WEEK

Bloggie applauds this perspicacious observer:

"The administration is in a panic mode to implement controversial and irreversible structural and curricular changes campus-wide by early February fiscal plan deadlines with only the vaguest notions of their impacts. The plan is, according to an interview with a top administrator published in the most recent Independent Collegian, to cast out many seeds and "see what grows." This experimental garden, as most senators articulated in many different ways, seems a costly recipe for disaster. Utter madness. Stay tuned."

"Dictionary of Academia" Read it While it's Hot

A MUST READ FOR ALL ACADEMICS! Now on Amazon Kindle. Click on Professor Goat above to be directed to the book.

Comment of the Week

"This is that old tension between the corporate way of doing things and the academic way of doing things. In the corporate world, you sweep everything under the rug to make your b.s. as shiny, pleasing to the nose, and profitable as possible. In the academic world, you operate with a higher moral standard. Veritas and all that."

Comment of the Week of August 13

Re UT academic posers and hypocrites:

Have their checks calculated in units of postmodern theoretical currency and issued in photocopied legal tender notes signed by Walter Benjamin with a photo of Karl Marx and a seal stamped “In Derrida We Trust”.

Comment of the Era

Wow! Ain't that something.

-Anonymous

Comment of the Week

Mention goes to the the anonymous commentator of Feb 7, who, regarding UT President Llloyd Jacob's "Investing in Faculty" letter, stated: "If we could use the same criteria for 'investing in administrators' we could cut most of those positions."

Comments to HLC

Make sure you address your comments to HLC to the email address listed below in the "Higher Learning Commission Wants to Know" post. This may be the only chance you have to be heard. Bloggie hears that UT administration has discussed giving faculty "training" so that faculty members know how to "properly" talk to the HLC folks. How's that for stacking the deck? Does everyone get a little script to read? Make sure you practice before a mirror at being bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

Comment of the Week!

Definitely, the Comment of the Week award goes to Anonymous 12:14 pm, Dec 3, under the "Higher Learning Commission Needs to Know" posting by Diogenes. Pithy and pointed!

TO CONTACT BLOGGIE . . .

Bloggie is always glad to consider submissions to this blog. If you have something that you wish posted please send it to:

ascbloggie@gmail.com

Letter and Petition from Foreign Languages Faculty Member

A couple weeks ago, at the beginning of summer break, we in the Department of Foreign Languages were informed that our secretary's position was being eliminated and that while she will not lose her job (she'll be transferred), that position is not to be filled. We apparently will be expected to do our own jobs plus what we can of the secretary's. That is clearly not acceptable, and so one of the steps we in FL are taking against it is an online petition now available for any who want to (including those who for whatever reason--not a registered Ohio voter, not a US citizen, etc.--cannot sign the petition against SB5), to read and sign.

I know not everyone on the blog will be interested in this; I'm not asking anyone who doesn't want to, to sign or even read the petition. I do think that there are many who would be interested and would want to sign it--if they knew about it.

It's scary to post this under my own name; I'm as afraid as anyone of repercussions. But this is simply too important to keep quiet on, and we have to do something! FL is not the first department that this has happened to, and it's almost certain not to be the last if we don't speak up in a way that the administration will hear us and in a way that makes clear that other people are seeing that it's going on.

Nemeth Does it Again

Nemeth's New Article in Collegian

The Independent Collegian has run another of Professor Nemeth's fine and provocative articles in its latest edition. This one discusses the double-talk by mouthpieces for the current UT administration concerning the effects of and reasons behind so-called strategic reorganization. Make sure you get the latest version of Newspeak 5.1 if you want to decode what UT administrators are really saying.

UT Ranks 13th Nationally on Administrative Bloat

See Appendix B of the Administrative Bloat report posted on 8/28 for evidence, but UT now has a higher proportion of administrators to students than all but 12 public universities in America. President Jacobs has finally put University of Toledo in the top tier. With Strategic Organization he may be aiming for number one.

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Recent Letters from The Blade

Jacobs' arrogance is astonishing

Recently, President Lloyd Jacobs of the University of Toledo stated that bonuses were justified because his administrators "took all the risks."

As a professor at UT, I am outraged that President Jacobs claims that administrators take all of the risks. What risks do they take that the other faculty and staffs on campus do not?

Administrators are protected by state and federal employment laws and by their contracts.

When ex-President Vik Kapoor was terminated, he remained a professor with a salary near what he was paid as president.

As president emeritus, Dan Johnson retained a salary greater than his pay as president.

In the recent layoffs, exceptionally few administrators were terminated. It seems to me that low-level personnel at UT have far more risks because the greater proportion of the layoffs have come from their ranks. And they did not have continuing salaries.

President Jacobs' answer to questions on two occasions regarding relinquishing part of his bonus was to the effect that he earned his bonuses and what he did with them was his business.

Administrators do not risk their personal money in their duties: they use taxpayer money and funds collected through donations and grants to the university.

Administrators take home salaries in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and then add bonuses for longevity and whatever else the president decides is fitting for their contracts.

However, the lower-level personnel have much lower salaries and no such bonuses. Where is the risk?

It seems to me that these bonuses are convoluted: The lower-level personnel are taking the greater risks with no bonuses while the administrators with very rewarding jobs with little risk receive large bonuses.

Am I missing something here?

WALTER W. OLSON,

Mechanical, Industrial, and Manufacturing

Engineering,

University of Toledo

It's the same old, same old at UT

I could hardly believe the arrogance of Dr. Lloyd Jacobs, president of the University of Toledo, when a reporter asked if he would be willing to forgo his bonus in light of the layoffs, raise in tuition, etc.

His comment was that he worked for it. Is that to say that the ones being laid off did not work for their pay?

All I can say is, business as usual at UT. Some things never change.

SANDY FLICK

Rose Acres Drive

UT also has checks, balances

In response to letter titled "Professors must focus on teaching," I would like to point out that the University of Toledo operates on the basis of shared governance.

This means that faculty members participate in the administration of the university.

A focus on teaching requires faculty to address administrative issues such as policies, procedures, and yes, finances, because these all affect classroom outcomes. A university with solid and equitable finances benefits everyone, including and especially the students. Just as the U.S. government is constituted to have checks and balances, so is our university government.

The UT-AAUP is one of those checks against UT administrators who most recently have displayed more concern for their own profit rather than a concern for the common good.

LINDA M. ROUILLARD,

Associate Professor

of French,

University of Toledo

Quote of the Year (so far)

The following is excerpted from the recent UT AAUP newsletter concerning the official university response to news of the bonus scandal:

. . . . Either Jacobs is misleading the media or he has misled the Board of Trustees.

President Jacobs objected to "the general tone" of the UT-AAUP Newsletter. Many persons on this campus object to the "general tone" of the Jacobs Administration. During his tenure as President, he has introduced an administrative culture of fear and intimidation. . . .

A point of logic must be raised here, with all respect to UT AAUP, the conclusions that President Jacobs has (1) misled the media and (2) the Board of Trustees are not mutually exclusive. Both would seem likely given his considerable talent at spinning "visions."

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